Why it’s important to learn BBQ grill cleaning tricks.
Summer is fast approaching and you know what that means, backyard cookouts, burgers, and barbecue. But as you pull out your charcoal grill, you realize that some of last summer’s remnants of culinary adventures are left clinging onto the grill. Although, some of you are so diligent that you’ve already cleaned it after last summer’s barbecue grill parties, still, that’s not enough. You need to know the importance of cleaning and sanitizing your grill.
Here’s why: While you’re happily posting perfect, flavorful char marks on your burgers and steaks on your social media accounts, those same leftover burned meat becomes carbon deposits on your grill, including the grates, hood, interior of the firebox, and flavorizing bars and burner tubes (on gas grills).
Not only are those carbon deposits look ugly, especially when you consider you’ll be eating food coming from this “dirty” grill, those leftover food, grease and sauces may harbour harmful bacteria. Furthermore, too much of those unwanted things can cause the grill to have uneven temperatures, which can affect the overall quality of your grilled food.
Scrubbing the grill after each time you use it would be a great way to start BBQ grill cleaning for safe and healthy grilling.
Here are some useful BBQ grill cleaning tips to follow:
- Use a steel brush to scrub the grill grates before grilling any food and inspect the grill for any loose wire brush bristles, as they might be ingested accidentally with the food.
- Make it a rule to clean the grates once every 2 months if you’re a frequent griller.
- Do a thorough BBQ grill cleaning twice per season to keep the cooking quality excellent and give your grilled food a better taste.
Note: all cleaning procedures mentioned here are the same for both charcoal and gas grills, with the exception that is charcoal grills are built simpler than gas grills.
Whether online or in your local hardware store, there are a lot of grill-cleaning tools, gadgets, and gizmos for you to use. But the time-tested long-handled wire brush and the wire bottle brush with a 5-gallon heavy duty degreaser are the best grill cleaning tools you’ll ever need! Do pick specially formulated degreasers, so your grilled food won’t have an odd taste (as other non-safe degreasers do), or you can also do BBQ grill cleaning the old fashioned way with warm water, anti-grease dish soap, and a mixture of vinegar and baking soda.
You may also want to use a dedicated stainless steel cleaner in case you have a stainless steel grill. Use rubber gloves as well to avoid having your skin come into contact with harmful chemicals and clean your grill during an overcast day, rather than in a hot sunny day. The heat can cause the leftover food to dry up and hardened, and will be difficult to remove.
The BBQ Grill Cleaning Process
What You Will Need
- Grill brush: A wire grill brush or a curled steel scour pad (or rolled up aluminium foil) and 12-inch tongs to hold it are good as grill cleaners.
- Scour sponge: Scour pads are also great BBQ grill cleaners, but you may have to use 2 or more pads to clean it depending on the size of your grill.
- Scraper tool: Grill scrapers also do a really good job, especially on those sticky grease and leftover burned meat.
- Dish soap or mild degreaser: Liquid dish soaps and mild degreasers are excellent combos for BBQ grill cleaning, especially if you use them in tandem with a wire grill brush or scour sponge.
- Dish gloves: Remember also to protect your hands from all these degreasers, soaps, hot water and sharp metal grill brushes by using industrial grade dish gloves.
Remove Old Ash from the Grill Base
First, you remove the upper and lower grill grates and set them aside. Remove the ash and leftover charcoal from the base of the grill using a small grill shovel or handheld brush and dustpan, then place them in the trash or fireproof container. If your charcoal fuel is wood pellets or chopped hardwood, then don’t throw it away, instead use it as part of your homemade compost for your garden – they help with plant nourishment.
Fire up the Grill and Scrub
Heating up your BBQ grill is actually a good thing, because it helps make the grease and leftover food that stick to the grates more brittle and easy to brush off with a wire grill brush. Just make sure to heat up your gas or charcoal grill for 5 minutes before scrubbing off the unwanted charred remains of the tiny grilled food, grease and other stains. It may be hard to remove them at the start, but once you get into this BBQ grill cleaning trick, they’ll just peel off easily.
Soak It
Get a large bucket and pour hot water into it, and add dishwashing liquid, then put the grill grates in too! Normally, this is done only for 30 minutes; however, just to be sure, try to submerge them in the bucket for 5 hours. Once you’ve removed the grill grates, it will be easier to scrub off the grease and other leftover BBQ meats and food. You may also want to remove other parts of the grill and soak them the bucket (i.e. burner-control knobs, warming racks, and grease trays), except those critical parts like the gas burner. The rest you can clean them using a towel or a rug accompanied by a degreasing spray.
Use a Vacuum
After removing the grill grates and flavorizer bars, you should be able to access the firebox now and clean it. Then place an empty tub under the firebox in order to catch any debris and dirty water that falls off of the grease tray opening. Use a plastic putty knife to scrape off any caked-on gunk from inside the firebox.
Then you’ll need a wet/dry vacuum cleaner and it can either be a portable or a full size one. Use this device to suck up any remaining loose debris. Once you’ve removed all the dust, dirt and gunk in the firebox, then rinse it with a garden hose.
Scrub Everything
After 30 minutes (or 5 hours) depending on how long you want to soak the grates and panels in the bucket, take them out and start scrubbing them with the wire brush. Mix baking soda with vinegar to create a special homemade paste that’s very effective against removing stubborn cud. Rinse well all dry cast-iron grates to ensure that they do not rust and check on porcelain grates for chips, which may lead to rusting with too much exposure to heat and liquid substances. Clean them and use oil to coat them that will serve as a protective film to reduce the chances of rusting.
Use this time to also do some inspections like looking for signs of corrosion on the burners, or if their holes where the flames pass through are blocked. Sometimes spiders lay eggs inside the burner tubes, especially if you haven’t used your BBQ gas grill in a long time. Use a wire brush and brush it in way where you allow the brush bristles slide in and out of the burner holes, in order to remove any obstructions. You will find out how effective this BBQ grill cleaning trick once you’re done cleaning your grill.
Wash and Wipe
Throw away the waste water in the bucket that you used to soak the grill grates in earlier and refill it with clean new water. Add a few squirts of dishwashing liquid and then start scrubbing the external parts of the grill. Remember that finished surfaces are not idea for steel wool, metal sponges, and coarse scouring pads, or else you’ll leave scratch marks that will not only make your grill look ugly but also make it rust over time. Use micro-fiber towels to wipe down all surfaces and dry them thoroughly. These materials are highly absorbent and enhances the smoothness of finished surfaces.
Oil the Grill Grates
According to Joe Carroll’s cool ideas for BBQ grill cleaning, he’s the chef of Fette Sau and co-author of Feeding the Fire, it may be a good idea to soak the grill grates with cooking oil before grilling anything on there. The rationale behind this action is that the vegetable oil helps cook the meat and other foods better, it makes it more tender, and gives off a better taste too! Remember to use a soft cloth or small towel specially reserved for this task and dip it in vegetable oil so that it’s just coated but not dripping. Use a pair of tongs to hold the cloth and then gently rub it on the grill grates until they’re all properly coated.
More Ways to Clean Your BBQ Grill
- Steam Clean – After using your BBQ grill, allow it to cool down and then get several newspaper sheets and soak it with water. Now cover the grill with the soaked newspaper sheets and close the lid, then wait for 30 minutes to simulate a steam bath for the grill, as this will clean the grill from grease, dirt and grime.
- Use the Dishwasher – Another interesting BBQ grill cleaning tip is using a dishwasher, especially if you have a small grill because the hotplates should fit nicely into the dishwasher. If you wash the hotplates while they’re still warm, the dishwasher will do its job efficiently.
- Use an Onion – Did you know that the liquid extract from onions are great at removing grease and gunk on your BBQ grill grates? Cut a piece of onion in half and impale it on a fork, then rub the exposed part of the onion onto the grill grates to clean it.
- Vinegar Spray – Get a 2000ml spray bottle and mix 500ml of vinegar with 500ml of water, then pray the solution all over the grill and let it sit for 10 minutes. Now, refill the spray bottle and this time use only 500ml of vinegar, then spray it onto the grill again while scrubbing it with a sponge. This should remove all the grease and gunk from the grill grates.
- Coffee Cleaner – Get a huge plastic tub add hot water and pour 10 packs of coffee in it. Coffee has enough acids to melt away those hard-to-remove food remains. Let your grill grates and other utensils soak in the tub for 30 minutes before scrubbing off of the food remains.
- Baking Soda – Sprinkle baking soda on the grill and dissolve some in water. Use a sponge with a scourer to scrub until all the baking soda is gone and the grill is sparkling.
- Beer – After you’re done grilling food and while the grill is still warm, pour half a bottle of beer onto it. Leave for 2 minutes and then start scrubbing off the gunk. Beers also have acids and alcohol which breaks down the oil and grease, thus making your grill sparkling clean again.
- Hot Water & Foil – Get the 2000ml spray bottle again and mix it with hot water and dishwashing liquid. Spray it on the grill and use a sponge to scrub off the dirt and grease. You can also use a folded up foil paper as a scrub, as it works well in removing the gunk and other leftover food from the grill grates.
- Dispose of Fat and Oil Correctly – Get a special plastic or otherwise container to put all the fats, oils and grease into. Make sure to use newspaper or any other absorbent material and fill it in the container. This will allow the oil to be absorbed and not spill all over the place, so you can dispose of these refuse properly. You can also ask water companies in your area for free fat traps for disposing of fats, oils and grease. Contact Actenviro to help you dispose of these things, as they are not good to just throw in the garbage bin or the ground.
- Scrub Outside – Once the inside of your BBQ is sparkling, don’t forget to give the outside a good wash down. Hot soapy water and plenty of elbow grease is all you will need for this.
- Heat it Up – Heat up your BBQ grill after cleaning it. This will ensure that no water drops or other residual liquid from cleaning agents are left dangling on the surfaces and cause problems like rusting. It also helps in dispatching of these cleaning agents into vapor and not compromise food taste when you use the grill again. Try to invest in a weather-resistant BBQ cover as well, as it will protect it and make it last longer.
Finishing Up
Stainless-steel cleaner works great as a final touch, but it won’t remove heavy buildup or baked-on gunk. The most important thing is that you made sure to do BBQ grill cleaning both in the inside and out of your grill. Your food will taste better every time you grill, because there are no leftover foods and baked-on gunk on the grill grates. Cleaning also means that you avoid getting your BBQ food contaminated with harmful bacteria.